Brussels, 23/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - Last year saw eurozone and EU28 deficits start to decline in absolute terms, but public debt rose in both areas, according to the official figures published by the EU's statistical office, Eurostat, on Wednesday 23 April.
Within the eurozone, public deficit fell to 3% of GDP in 2013 from 3.7% in 2012. Luxembourg registered a surplus, and Germany came close to budget equilibrium. Simon O'Connor, a European Commission spokesman, stressed the significant differences in some cases when one excludes bank bailouts from the state deficit figures. For Slovenia, for example, state aid for banks reached 10.4% of GDP. In the EU28, the average deficit stood at 3.3% in 2013, compared with 3.9% in 2012. Ten member states had a budget deficit of over 3% of GDP, namely Slovenia (-14.7%), Greece (-12.7%), Ireland (-7.2%), Spain (-7.1%), the United Kingdom (-5.8%), Cyprus (-5.4%), Croatia and Portugal (both at -4.9%) and France and Poland (both at -4.3%).
Public debt in the eurozone reached 92.6% of GDP at the end of 2013, compared with 90.7% of GDP at the end of 2012. In the EU28, the public debt figure was also on the rise (85.2% at the end of 2012 and 87.1% at the end of 2013). The lowest debt was in Estonia (10%), Bulgaria (18.9%), Luxembourg (23.1%), Latvia (38.1%), Romania (38.4%) and Sweden (40.6%). The highest debt was in Greece (175.1%), Italy (132.6%), Portugal (129%), Ireland (123.7%), Cyprus (111.7%) and Belgium (101.5%). (EL)